Declaration of Independence is a call for rebellion against tyranny
Every year, for as long as I can recall, my family has had a Fourth of July party. The highlight is always a public reading of the Declaration of Independence, with each guest reading a portion of America's founding document.
I wonder if the day will come when this will be seen as subversive and a threat to public order.
The declaration is unapologetically insurrectionist. The 56 men who signed it were committing high treason against the British crown. If they'd lost the War of Independence, they would have been hanged, drawn and quartered, which is pretty much what the left wants to do to the Jan. 6 defendants.
The declaration lists the colonists' grievances against King George III, including his numerous violations of their rights as Englishmen.
The document affirmed that human rights – including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – are God-given. It also established a right to rebellion when these rights are consistently violated.
In 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden got so flustered while trying to quote the declaration's preamble that Jefferson's immortal words came out as: "We hold these truths to be self-evident … that all men and women are created by the, you know, you know, the thing."
I don't think it was just another Biden moment. The president feels threatened by the words that put us on the path to independence – especially invoking the Almighty. Given what the party has become, it's hard to recall that the declaration was largely written by the first Democratic president.
The upcoming election will turn on fidelity to the vision of the Founding Fathers or an older and far darker way of ordering society.
One side is committed to defending innocent human life. The other believes people are expendable when their existence is inconvenient.
Not since the Democrats' support for slavery in the Civil War era has a party been more committed to the suppression of civil liberties, ironically, now in the name of saving democracy.
Attorney General Merrick Garland wanted the FBI to investigate parents who protested too loudly at school board meetings.
Records of the Department of Homeland Security show that after the Jan. 6 riot, those targeted for scrutiny as potential domestic terrorists included ex-military, individuals with strong religious ties and supporters of former President Donald Trump.
This was just after a summer of rioting by Black Lives Matter and Antifa – including arson and murder – and before the pro-Hamas chaos of the past nine months. No one in the administration is suggesting investigating members of these savage gangs as a threat to homeland security.
Under Mr. Biden, equal justice is an illusion. A 75-year-old grandmother was sentenced to two years in prison for obstructing access to an abortion clinic.
But Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg refuses to prosecute pro-Hamas demonstrators who committed acts of violence while occupying a Columbia University building. When an anti-Semitic mob attacked a Los Angeles synagogue on June 23, Mr. Biden offered sympathy while the Department of Justice looked the other way.
So much for life and justice. But what about liberty? As if confiscatory taxation weren't enough, we are now being told what kind of car we can drive and household appliances we can use. We are even instructed in the proper use of pronouns so as not to offend the gender confused.
The Biden administration has repeatedly violated freedom of speech and religion under the First Amendment, security in our homes under the Second Amendment, the rights of parents to educate their children and the bodily autonomy of those resisting forced vaccination.
The left prattles about saving democracy while destroying liberty.
The Declaration of Independence has influenced the course of modern history more than any other manifesto of its kind.
The Constitution established a system of government. The Declaration of Independence set forth a rationale for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
It remains what it was 249 years ago: a profoundly revolutionary document. George Washington had the declaration read to his troops assembled in New York City on July 9, 1776.
Now, as then, the declaration has its enemies. Then it was the Tories. Now, it's bureaucrats, career politicians and elitists who think the common man is incapable of self-government.
This year could be as crucial to the future of our republic as 1776.
This column was first published at the Washington Times.
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